Golf-e

The original NES game makes a return in card format for the GBA.

What a world we live in nowadays. Games that came on cartridges the size of paperback books can now be shrunk down to span across five playing cards. Nintendo's released more than a handful of original Nintendo Entertainment System games on e-Reader compatible cards, and the company has just issued three more in a third series, one of which is the original game of Golf released on the NES system nearly two decades ago.

Since Golf was released far before a lot of the more elaborate golf designs, like Tiger Woods, Links or even Mean 18, this game lacks a lot of the features that we've come to expect in a videogame version of the sport, like accurate physics or a scorecard that can be pulled up at any time. And since the developers obviously didn't want to draw trees in a first-person perspective, any ball landing in the woods is counted as an "out of bounds" penalty. Ouch.

The game is definitely challenging, but most of that challenge comes from the fact that the game doesn't automatically calculate how far the player's ball is from the flag...nor does it inform how far the maximum shot from each of the clubs will go. It's a guessing game, much like real golf is, and because players have to do a lot of guesswork to get the ball into the hole, they'll find that their scores mirror real golfing scores; good luck breaking 100 your first few times down the fairway.

But for five bucks, it's not a bad little golf game to include in your collection...especially if you're looking to get a little mileage out of your e-Reader investment.